“I’m desperately behind. You’d be helping me out.”
She looked at him with a bite to her lip. He knew she was deciding on his merits versus his potential risks.
“I’ll only consent if you let me repay you in some way.”
The idea quickly fell from his lips. “I have a very dull dinner with some investors to attend tonight. They will have no doubt chosen the poshest restaurant in Florence with a continental menu that manages to avoid anything authentically Italian. They’ll pick an impressive bottle of wine chosen for its price and torture the sommelier as they swirl it around in their glasses pretending to know something about the vintage. They’ll discuss the weather and the latest political scandal in Italy, and it will make watching paint dry sound compelling. Would you like to join me?”
“With an invitation like that, how could I possibly refuse?” Luci answered with a huge smile that shot straight into Gio’s heart. He returned the grin.
Once he’d extended the invitation to dinner, it suddenly sounded like a marvelous idea. She was far more interesting than the blah-blah-blah he’d have to exchange with the investors. Rightly, they’d save any substantial conversation for boardroom conferences.
Why shouldn’t he have a pleasant evening with an attractive woman? He knew he’d never take it any further than that. It was just dinner. And bringing her with him was better than leaving her alone on his property tonight. He’d get her out of the villa in the morning.
“It’s set then? Pick you up right here?” He gestured to the fountain.
“I have a cocktail-length dress. Will that be sufficient?”
“And obviously you can accessorize.” He pointed to the purse with all of the jewels. “You’ll be the toast of the town.”
“I hope not.” Luci’s eyes opened in alarm.
“I was only joking. See you at eight.”
CHAPTER TWO
“THANK YOU, VIGGO.” Gio acknowledged his driver as he parked the car in front of the villa. Viggo quickly got out of his seat and dashed around to the passenger side to open the door for Luciana and Gio. After Gio helped her out of the car, she straightened the skirt of the pale blue dress she’d worn to dinner with him and his investors.
It was her little secret that she’d chosen the dress to complement the color of her handsome companion’s eyes. Of course, the color of Her Royal Highness Princess Luciana’s dress for the evening was the least of her secrets. Nonetheless, with her cool blond wig, silver shoes and diamond earrings, she felt like a woman who had been on a real date with a real man, as opposed to a shielded virgin locked in a stone tower. Gio had quickly become part of her grand adventure.
“Do we have to go in?” Luciana touched Gio’s jacket sleeve as he reached in his pocket for his fob entry to the wooden exterior door.
“Would you like to walk?”
“I’d love to.”
Driving from the restaurant after the dinner, Luciana was agog as they drove past landmarks she wanted to visit while she was here. The incredible piazzas, historic churches, marketplaces, museums and neighborhoods she’d seen only as an armchair traveler in the solitude of her palace sitting room. While she’d traveled to many places in the world for ceremonies and royal engagements, she’d never seen them as a tourist, able to meander and linger, and appreciate anything that caught her fancy. She could hardly wait to get started.
“Let’s walk this way.” Gio gently placed his hand on the small of her back to direct her away from the villa door. Her awareness arched to meet his touch.
“Thank you for accompanying me to dinner. As I mentioned, I generally leave the finessing of investors to my brother, Dante, now that our father has retired.”
“And Dante was unable to attend tonight?”
“Dante is spending some time at our offices in Mumbai. We have restructured the company and I will now serve as CEO.”
“What did you do before?”
“Product development. Which is where my heart is. You’d find me happier trying to make an AGP bus that can carry graphics faster than anything else on the market than you would seeing me in a conference room.”
“AGP?”
“Accelerated graphics port.”
“Of course,” she joked. “How would I not know that?”
“But now I’ll do what needs to be done for the company. Actually, I welcome the opportunity to do things my way. To get them right.”
“Are things not right?”
“Look at those two.” Gio pointed to two dogs on leashes across the street that barked at and sniffed each other with great interest.
Ah, Luci noted, she had asked too snoopy a question about Gio’s work and he’d changed the subject. Her inner Princess Luciana should have known better than to pry, in spite of her curiosity to know more about him.
She hoped to recover with, “Your investors were a lovely group of people. I saw photos on many a smartphone of grandchildren performing in school plays and rosebushes that had yielded prizewinners.”
The princess was only too used to smiling and taking interest in the lives of total strangers. In fairness, she was always quite honored that people she met wanted to share details about their lives with her. Meeting people was one of the things she did like about royal life. But not as much as she liked this, walking in the open air with Gio, and not a handler or schedule in sight.
“Enough about me,” he said as they continued after watching the dogs perform mating rituals. “What do you do for a living?”
“I’m a teacher,” Luciana fibbed. That was what she would be if she could. Royal duties combined with her father’s outdated ways kept her ambition from coming to fruition. “I spend most of my days talking to four-year-olds.”
“A teacher? I never would have figured you for that.”
“Why not?”
“You’re very—” he searched for the right word “—elegant. The way you handled yourself at dinner was distinguished. Well, there we go when we stereotype or pigeonhole anyone. My apologies.”
If he only knew. How badly she didn’t want to always have to be elegant. How her father raised her in a very old-fashioned monarchy she didn’t question, where Luciana had been groomed her whole life to make appearances. To never share anything of herself, her hopes, her likes. To be only in the service of the crown. While she led a life of luxury and privilege for which she was grateful, her heart ached for more.
Perhaps she’d be content if the man she was to marry wasn’t so much older and who, in the handful of meetings she’d had with him, hadn’t talked to her as if she were already his possession. Maybe her life would be sublime if she was to wed a bold and good-humored man like say, just for example, Gio.
She blushed at her own thought as she noted the shadows the night sky cast onto Gio’s defined cheekbones.
“Bellissima, what is a teacher doing traveling alone with only a bag full of jewels to pay her way?”
As she had learned in her years of training, restraint was always the best policy, so rather than answer him, she occupied herself taking in the light of the moon and how it played against not only Gio’s face but also the architecture of this great ancient city.
“Where are you from, Luci?” Gio pressed.
“Spain,” she simplified.
She had a flush of concern that she was out late at night in a foreign country with a man she’d only just met. Half of her considered the potential danger, but the other half wanted to throw caution to the wind and grab as many experiences as she could out of this trip to Florence. Including this unexpected interlude with a beguiling man.
“Your Italian is flawless.”
“I studied for many years.”
Indeed, Princess Luciana had always been fascinated with Italian history, art and literature, especially the Renaissance period when Florence was the center of Eur
ope. It was a thrill to finally use the language she had practiced so diligently. While she had been to Rome for royal occasions and adored it, the City of Lilies had always held her interest.
About a year ago, her father, King Mario, had informed her that she would be marrying widower King Agustin of the neighboring island Menocita. She didn’t protest, always wanting to please her father after her mother had died.
Izerote was racked with problems. Because theirs was a tiny country with limited development, unemployment had become a crisis. As the current generation had grown, many households sent their offspring away for higher education or to seek jobs in Spain or the rest of the world. Without careers on the island for future generations, the population would continue to shrink.
On Menocita, King Agustin’s father had brought tourism to their shores. Exclusive resorts along with family-friendly water sports and vacation rentals had turned the island into a year-round paradise that created thousands of jobs for the inhabitants. After King Agustin’s wife died, he’d decided to find another island to merge with to create the same tourism and bring larger prosperity to his family name. When the proposal of marriage to his daughter came to King Mario, he could not refuse. In turn, Princess Luciana could not let her father or her subjects down, so she had no option but to agree to it.
Yes, a future she wouldn’t have chosen for herself was looming. But at least she’d always have this. Florence. This journey of self-discovery and of making a single dream come true.
Luciana did feel badly that she had left her father a note saying only that she would return to Izerote to marry King Agustin, but that she was going to do this one thing before she did. She had previously begged him to let her, just once, leave the island without attendants, limousines and security details. It was a liberty she needed to know, if even for a short time. It was something she longed for, a wanderlust she wasn’t able to silence. King Mario, an overly protective man especially after her mother was killed in a car accident in Madrid, denied her. And not wanting to cause him anymore grief, she acquiesced—until she could no longer.
She thought back to the trip to Paris King Mario did plan for Luciana and a cousin her age. When they were there, clothing stores were closed to the public so that they could shop alone, never paying for anything. When the girls walked down the boulevards, bodyguards trailed only a few paces behind. An entire hotel floor was rented despite their needing only two rooms. They visited a museum after midnight, fully staffed for just the two of them. While Luciana did appreciate her father’s efforts, it was hardly what she’d had in mind.
With the wedding imminent, Princess Luciana’s heart, her soul, the very essence of her being, insisted that she break away from the protocol that had been drilled into her. And drove her to do something completely for herself, as reckless as it was. So, she escaped the palace walls and her role as the perfect daughter and princess, leaving no hint of where she was going. She bought no tickets for her transportation, brought along no phone where her location could be traced. As drastic a step as it was to take palace jewels to sell, she hadn’t been able to think of another way.
Three weeks that belonged only to her wasn’t so very much to ask for.
After her walk with Gio and their return to his villa, Luciana was tired. She’d face the issues of the jewels and finding a suitable place to stay tomorrow. For tonight, she was eternally grateful for his generosity.
They lingered at the halfway point between her guest cottage and his.
“I can’t thank you enough for this.”
“My pleasure, Luci. Thank you for accompanying me to the dinner.” He crossed an arm over his waist and bowed forward to her in an exaggerated posture of formality that might have been funny if she was a different person.
* * *
“Did you sleep well?” Gio called up to Luci as she stepped out onto the small Juliet balcony of the guest cottage, wrapping her hands around the wrought iron railing. Properly known as a balconet, it wasn’t large enough for a chair or table. It was meant for enjoying the view of the courtyard below and to peer out beyond the villa’s walls. When Shakespeare included the architectural feature in his romantic tragedy, the nickname stuck.
It took considerable effort for Gio to pretend not to notice how the transparent fabric of the flowing white nightgown Luci wore hid nothing of her lovely curves underneath. But the sudden twitch in his core told the truth.
He placed the pot of coffee he was holding onto the small glass table near the fountain. “Would you like to join me for breakfast?”
“How magical to wake up and smell all of these flowers,” Luci said with a sweeping arm surveying the courtyard’s garden. “The lavender is so sweet.”
The same view was available from Gio’s bedroom, as the two cottages were identical. He had risen early and let himself into the main house to find some breakfast.
He glanced up to Luci again. It was actually nothing short of surreal that a beautiful woman stood on the balcony of his guesthouse in Florence, albeit that her status there was temporary. Surreal even that he was back home, as most of his adult life thus far had been spent living away. The idea of staying in one place might take some getting used to. “Come down and have some coffee.”
Luci accepted the bid with, “Just give me a few minutes to get dressed.”
An unfamiliar voice inside Gio wanted to beg her to come down as she was, so fetching did she look in her cotton gauze. But decorum won out.
Always buried in work, he had not been alone with a woman in quite a while. In spite of the fact that this unexpected maiden with the blond hair and the big brown eyes had landed in his lap yesterday, this was a very important morning. Which was why he’d chosen to wake at dawn, go for a run, shower and dress, all the while leaving himself enough time to have a relaxed breakfast.
Today was his first official day as CEO of Grasstech.
He stepped into his cottage to gather a laptop and some briefings he had been looking over and brought them out to the courtyard so he was ready to leave after breakfast. The two cottages were small but sufficient with a sitting room on the first floor, and a bedroom and bathroom upstairs. They were decorated in yellow, black and gold with expensive, but simple, furnishings. Gio’s mother had told him that she’d recently redone the guest quarters and looked forward to his seeing them. Later, he’d ring her at the vineyard to offer his compliments.
Such coziness was unfamiliar to him. President of research, development and project management, Gio Grassi was accustomed to traversing the world, and preferred the anonymity of hotels. Sleek, modern hotel rooms looked no different to him whether he was in Cape Town or Seoul or Dallas. Hotels perfectly suited the life he had been leading. Everything at his disposal and on his own time clock.
When he was lost in concentration on a new project it could be hours, sometimes even days, that would pass while he was surrounded by computer parts and algorithms. He lived immersed in a technological world most people had no understanding of. Where he laid his head to rest was of little concern to him. Until now, when his entire lifestyle was about to change.
Gio hopped up the five steps from the courtyard to the main house to fetch the rolls and fruit the housekeeper had left for him. When he brought them to the outdoor table, Luci was coming out her front door, suitcase and purse in tow. In the morning sun, her eyes caught glints of light.
“Is something wrong?” she asked in reaction to his expression.
“Please, sit.” He pulled out a chair for her to take her place at the table.
After coffee was poured and rolls were bitten into, Luci asked, “You’re going to the Grasstech office today?”
“Yes. I’ve got to go be the boss man now,” Gio said with a titter belying his mixed feelings on the transition. On one hand he was relieved to be taking full control of Grasstech and knew he would fine-tune operations and move the company even fur
ther forward. Yet the other side of him rather dreaded becoming the face of the empire. He’d made a mistake that had cost the company dearly and he had a lot of mopping up to do. In trusting his ex-girlfriend, Francesca, there were now leaked company secrets to contend with and a press ready to bring that information public.
“Thank you so much for your hospitality. I’ll leave right after breakfast, so don’t let me add to your troubles.”
“Have we settled where you are going?” he asked with a quick glance at his watch. As strangely intriguing as this domestic scene was, he had a million other things on his mind. He wouldn’t be finding out who this lovely Luci in front of him truly was. Not only didn’t he have time for a woman in his life, he couldn’t buy the story that she was a teacher. There was more going on with her than met the eye, and that was something he hadn’t any business getting involved in.
“That’s kind of you to consider my lodging something we are concerned about, but I’ll figure it out on my own.”
“Of course.” But he couldn’t leave it at that. Her mysterious identity notwithstanding, Gio’s mother had taught him to be chivalrous, and after hearing yesterday about Luci’s budget issues he wasn’t going to have her traipsing alone around Florence looking for a cheap hotel that might not be safe.
“I’ll have someone at my office look into hotels for you.” The sooner he squared her safely away, the less he’d fret about it later.
“I couldn’t impose like that.”
“It’s no imposition.”
“Thank you but...it wouldn’t be...”
If he let her go, he’d be distracted all day worrying if she was okay. And he needed his concentration today. “Why don’t you go out and see some sights? We’ll meet later and I can complain to you about my workday.”
A giggle escaped from her, which brought a lovable little blush to her cheeks.
She had been an utterly flawless dinner date last night, charming his investors by laughing at their unfunny jokes and asking questions about their families to get them talking about themselves. Gio despised making small talk. Luci, who had appeared poised and almost regal in her blue silk dress, knew exactly how to field the evening, which took the pressure off him. He could return the favor. After that, she’d be out of his life and on with her holiday.
The Italian's Runaway Princess Page 3